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The girl and I were watching Hercules today, and it got me thinking about character meets at Walt Disney World. We did a ton of them, and plan to do even more of them in January. But there are characters I’d have loved to have had the chance to interact with that just don’t do the meets. Characters like Megara, whom I only caught a glimpse of for half a second during Fantasmic, and thus only got one really crappy photo of:

Terrible photo I know… but it was MEG!

Or Giselle from Enchanted, Now THAT’s a princess I’d like to meet. But rumour has it that we’ll never see her in the parks. I did a little digging and it looks like Disney is simply unwilling to pay any royalties to Amy Adams (whom I adore and who originally portrayed Giselle in the movie). Now, I don’t know if that’s accurate or not, but if it is? I’m not impressed.

And now? Now it sounds like the sisters from Frozen, Anna and Elsa, will be removed from Epcot at the beginning of January. At the same time as the holiday decorations get packed up. I’m very much hoping those rumours are false too.

Disney has a host of Princesses that are so much better for our little ones to look up to, yet we don’t ever get to see them. What’s up with that? At least we still get to meet Vanellope – who, even though she hasn’t been officially crowned to the Disney Pantheon, is my favourite Disney Princess.

I don’t know. The same few princesses over and over again are fine, everyone loves a classic. But I for one would love to see some of the others. How about Rapunzel joining the gang for meals at Cinderella’s castle? Or Anna, Elsa, and Merida showing up at the Princess Storybook Dining in Epcot? I’d love a character meet that included Mulan and Megara too. I’m glad we get to meet Tiana, but let’s include a few others. Lots of great ones that could be included!

Last night we took our daughter to see the new Disney animated movie, Frozen. I had heard very little about it besides being an adaptation of The Snow Queen and having been heavily inspired by Norway. The Snow Queen was never one of my favourites (so I’m happy to report it’s a VERY loose adaptation), but the idea of Norwegian princesses??? I was beyond excited for. Damon’s family and mine both, coincidentally, hail from Norway… and I very desperately want to make a pilgrimage there some day. So this was a movie I knew we’d be seeing shortly after it came out. Knowing what I know of both Disney AND it’s princesses? Well… I was nervous. They don’t exactly have a history of strong female leads.

While Frozen has it’s issues, one cannot argue the absolute joy I found in both Anna and Elsa’s characters. Both completely unique, strong, believable, awesome female roll models. These are princesses I would be happy to have Lily-Ann look up to. They are truly wonderful, and they are NEVER overshadowed by the male characters who are very much there to support their story vs take it over. In fact, one of my favourite moments, that made the feminist me shout out with a WOOT, was when the romantic male lead actually ASKS if he can kiss Anna. He doesn’t assume that his advance would be welcome, he doesn’t just put himself into her space, he is worried and concerned and ASKS – allowing her character to take the reins and remain an autonomous individual. It looks to me like Disney may finally be listening and realizing that Women are vastly different from one another and we all have different goals and dreams… but that we ALL deserve to be respected for those very things.

And yeah! The girl is now absolutely tickled when I call her my little Norwegian princess. 😀 Because while she’s a princess who has enjoyed excavators, lego, and swordplay… she really has always been a fancy dress-up playing princess who happened to be Norwegian.